Video Replay

Watch the two candidates in a video from Friday's edit board meeting at the Gazette. Click on this link http://bit.ly/d8diBt

Jones has advocated a hands-on approach to economic development, such as providing tax incentives for individual businesses or industries that he feels show potential, and by leveraging “regional assets” such as Western Michigan University and the creation of its Business Technology and Research Park.

“You’ve got to work with business and you’ve got to target the particular needs of a business, of a region, and try to work to put those things together to get business in the area,” he said.

He sponsored the legislation, for instance, that opened the way for Mattawan-based MPI Research to develop two former Pfizer Inc. buildings in downtown Kalamazoo.

As chairman of the House Commerce Committee, he said, “I’ve been about jobs and economic development, not only here in Southwest Michigan, but throughout the state.”Schuitmaker said economic development would be her No. 1 priority as well if elected to the Senate seat. But she said a fairer approach than the one Jones advocates is lowering the tax burden for all businesses, not targeting some.

“If you believe the way to get jobs here is to hand out special tax breaks, well, shouldn’t that be true for everyone? It’s a fair policy question,” Schuitmaker said.

“Government does not create jobs, but what it can do is create a great environment for jobs,” she said.

Pointing to voting record scorecards compiled by business advocacy groups, Schuitmaker said she’s supported legislation that aids businesses and voted against bills that burden them.

The Michigan office of the National Federation for Independent Business officials’ scorecard shows select bills they feel are good for small business, those that aren’t and how lawmakers voted on them.

In the 2009-2010 legislative session so far, the business federation’s scorecard showed Schuitmaker was 100 percent in support of business in the 14 bills it highlighted for state House members.

She voted “no,” for instance, on a measure to provide an additional 26 weeks of unemployment benefits to people who had exhausted their benefits and are enrolled in a job-training program. The measure would raise employer unemployment insurance payroll taxes by $37 million annually, according to the federation’s report.

The 2009 bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Schuitmaker also voted against a bill requiring companies that receive a state contract to build or renovate a state building to hire only Michigan residents, which would be up from a current 50 percent requirement. It allowed for a lower percentage of hires to the extent state residents weren’t available.

The bill, which Jones co-sponsored, provided an exemption for employers bound by a union contract that allows for “portability of employees on an interstate basis.”

In the federation’s report, Jones supported small business 21 percent of the time, including by voting “yes” on the unemployment extension and the Michigan resident hiring preference bill, which also passed the House and stalled in the Senate.

“My opponent’s position is he’s all about jobs, but when it comes to the very people that create those jobs, he ranks 21 percent and I rank much higher than that,” Schuitmaker said.

Unfazed by the low rating, Jones said the federation takes a “very conservative” positions on a range of issues, adding that his practice has been to “work with particular businesses in this community and actually creating jobs in this community.”

“We need to do thinking on a state level policywise ... to encourage business to come and grow in Michigan. But in today’s situation that (alone) doesn’t cut it,” he said.